Taking Responsibility.

[kingmakereffect]

And a while after that strange, dark floor is accessed, after you've had time to look things over and get some idea of what's happening...well. There won't be any sort of official announcement to tell you to get downstairs, nor will there be a personal invitation for you to do so. Instead, the doors at the end of the corridor (were they there before? You find that you don't remember. It doesn't matter anymore, though-) slide open, as they always do, and the elevator ride to the courtroom is probably the first familiar thing that's happened all day. It's smooth and quick, though it seems to take a bit longer than it usually does. And when the doors open at the end of the line, the courtroom looks different. The dark, weirdly cylindrical room is largely the same in and of itself, but the usual twenty-seven podium circle is gone; instead, there's a smaller setup in the center of the room - ten podiums total, and you'll likely find the way your spots have been distributed to be very familiar indeed. Of further notice is the balcony - there's a structure that wasn't there before in view of the courtroom, situated high above, barred-in by a railing that'd probably be at about waist-height on your average person; there's no one up there just yet, however. There are so few of you now. It seems that today there are no speeches to give; maybe the Kingmaker is absent, maybe he just doesn' have anything to say. Either way, however, the implication in the fact that you're here at all is clear. For one last time, make the guilty take responsibility.

Comments

[sleepingkogoro]

I think the problem would be why we are not in a real world. What I mean to ask is why we would accept to be in here.

Do you remember that very first dream? The one about feeling safe and all that? I don't think if we had been kidnapped against our will we would have felt that. It's possible we were lied to, but I have to wonder what exactly we were told.

[cherryblooded]

Drugs can do that to you, the ones Black mentioned. Or, it's possible that we did whatever we did to get here willingly?

[notjustawriter]

Were we tryin' to accomplish something?

[cherryblooded]

If I was, I certainly don't remember it. I wouldn't have left my wife and daughter behind to go play a fake murder game.

...But it's also possible there's more I don't remember.

[garudynamic]

If we all had something bad we did it'd make sense with how the game started but... a lot of us didn't. I mean, could you see Megumi doing anything that would get her in some awful punishment game?

[cherryblooded]

Not at all. Whatever purpose the game originally had, it's not the same as this round's.

[penduli]

[ ...he hates to be the bearer of piss-poor statements but, yosuke, ]

She was sweet, but there's plenty of people with secrets. None of us could say if she did or didn't. [ How well can you say you really know someone? ]

[isafraid]

Not one bit. [He says sternly.] Can't see folks like The King or Lynne exactly doing anything terrible either.

[goodforsomething]

It'd take a lot to get me to go for somethin' like this, but it ain't impossible.

Why us, though? There's plenty of people in my world who'd do better at the whole Matrix thing.

[amygdalae]

And even before that, this implies that we all knew each other to some degree before any of this even happened.

[cherryblooded]

Not necessarily - just that we met whoever's running this.

[amygdalae]

All the same, at least we would have had knowledge of others beyond ourselves.

[And clearly they did not.]

[notjustawriter]

Unless the drugs made us forget.

[amygdalae]

I suppose.

[Though really, why were they required to forget in the first place? There's really no logic to that at all.]

[penduli]

That's probably just a side-effect, according to Glory.

...so they probably weren't meant to make us forget anything. They just sort of did.

[notjustawriter]

Seems kind of strange for us all to have memory problems on accident, but maybe whatever they gave us was just that powerful.

[goodforsomething]

If all this is true, we've been kept out for a good couple months. Multiple doses, sure, but that's strong stuff.

[notjustawriter]

....It does, don't it?

[goodforsomething]

If we were tryin' to do somethin' together, the memory-wipin' drugs were a pretty awful plan.

[notjustawriter]

It was probably a stupid idea, judging by this situation. I don't know what the hell I was thinkin'.

[goodforsomething]

I've had some bad ideas, but they're usually better than this. And I stole 300 gallons of radioactive waste from a government warehouse.

[captainobnoxious]

That was a fantastic idea and I'm still punching your brother if I ever get the chance to meet him.

[amygdalae]

...did you at least wear protective gear?

[sleepingkogoro]

Why would you even do that?!

[pokexplorer]

...It required that much?

[Good lord. That portal sure is something.]